The history of the Fatherland knows many examples when strong-minded troops won a victory over better-armed, but morally weak enemy troops. It is no accident that one of the founders of the military pedagogical school of the Russian army, General M. I. Dragomirov, believed that " education is more important than education, because military affairs are largely more a matter of will than of intelligence." These words have not lost their relevance to this day. Educational work today is the alpha and omega of activating the human factor to solve the tasks of reforming the Armed Forces, qualitatively rebuilding the army and Navy in order to increase their combat capability and combat readiness, restore regular combat training of troops, increase the social status of military personnel and the attractiveness of military service. This is what we discussed today with the head of the Main Department of Educational Work of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Colonel-General Vladimir Kulakov.

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Vladimir Fyodorovich Kulakov was born on November 2, 1948 in the town of Bila Tserkva. In 1970, he graduated from the Leningrad Higher Combined Arms Command School. He commanded a platoon, a company.

After graduating from the Frunze Military Academy in 1976, he was appointed Chief of Staff and Deputy regimental Commander. 1979-1990-regimental commander, Chief of Staff-Deputy Division Commander, Division commander, Head of the training center for junior specialists of the motorized rifle forces of the Leningrad Military District.

In 1992, he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. He held the positions of first deputy Commander of the army, commander of the army corps-commander of the joint group in the state of emergency.

Since December 1994 - in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation: Head of the Department of Regime and Service of troops, Head of the Department of Service of Troops and Military Discipline, Head of the Department of Service of Troops and Security of the Military Service of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

In July 1997, he was appointed Head of the Main Department of Educational Work of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Doctor of Military Sciences, Academician of the Academy of Military Sciences.

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- Vladimir Fedorovich, the importance of well-thought-out, systematic, purposeful educational work is increasingly being pushed to the forefront of ensuring military reform. What causes this?

- First, there have been fundamental changes in the spiritual sphere of public life. The old system of spiritual values has been rejected. There is a certain disorientation of young people. Under these conditions, those values that have always been cementing in the military sphere, regardless of the political situation, have been devalued - patriotism, readiness to serve the Motherland, loyalty to military duty, pride in belonging to the Armed Forces.

Secondly, the object of education itself has changed radically. Today, the personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation has ceased to be a homogeneous mass, leveled and averaged by a single party ideology, and individual military personnel are parts of this mass. Every military man is a person who requires a respectful and responsible attitude.

Finally, in addition to changing the content of education, the old infrastructure, the "skeleton" of educational work, which was a network of party, Komsomol and public organizations, was also destroyed. As a result, having lost a serious support in their activities, the teacher was essentially left alone with their problems.

This situation objectively requires the creation of an updated system of educational work and mechanisms for its implementation, ensuring the effectiveness of its functioning. Generally speaking, the main goal of educational work is a systematic and integrated approach to the formation of a full-fledged personality of the defender of the Fatherland.

- It is known that the efforts of leading specialists of military academies and institutes, officers of the central office of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, types of Armed Forces and branches of the Armed Forces resulted in the development of the "Concept of education of personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation", "Concept of military-patriotic education of youth", "Concept of education of military personnel of law enforcement ministries and departments of the Russian Federation". What are programs with such loud and sonorous names?

- These concepts, approved by the Coordination Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Educational Work in the Armed Forces, Other troops, military formations and bodies, set out a system of modern views, ideas, goals and priority areas of activity in the field of education of various categories of military personnel, reveal the content of military-patriotic education as one of the most important areas of work of in the context of the transformation of society, the reform of the entire military system.

Since the political organizations were eliminated, the troops could not deal with the problems of organizing and conducting educational work. There was no relevant literature, methods, and generally a conceptual program for training personnel.

Today there is such a program. Structurally, the "Concept of education of personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation" represents the ideological, theoretical, methodological and organizational foundations of educational work in the army and Navy.

In ideological and theoretical terms, the emphasis is placed on those values that need to be used as a spiritual support in the education of military personnel. Perhaps this is the main thing for this period of reform, since the" technology " of education has not changed significantly.

The search for spiritual and moral foundations of education allowed us to formulate ideas that form the spiritual framework of educational work in the army and navy: Russian state patriotism, loyalty to military duty, readiness to protect the interests of the Russian Federation. Briefly, they can be designated as follows:: Russia. Debt. Professionalism. In this case, we have abandoned the extremes of ideologization and politicization. Neither the interests of any particular parties, organizations, nor even political contradictions, strife should intrude into the sphere of military activity. Despite ideological and political differences in people's views and attitudes, we have something in common that unites us - the Fatherland and loyalty to it, love for the Motherland.

The purpose of educational work is specific and definite - to form and develop the qualities of a military professional and a reliable defender of the Fatherland, personal responsibility for the performance of assigned tasks.

- Anyone who has worked with people knows that this is not an easy task. Moreover, the quality characteristics of conscripts arriving in the Armed Forces are decreasing every year...

- Yes, despite the fact that the educational level of the "autumn-98" draft has improved somewhat compared to the spring draft of 1998, there is nothing to be happy about. More than 5% of young men have only primary education and, accordingly, a very low level of knowledge of history, literature, and the state structure of the country, more than 90% of young men do not regularly read either books or newspapers.

The social composition remains the same - the main part of young men is called up from the village, small towns and villages. About 24% of conscripts were brought up in single-parent families.

The number of conscripts who had police records increased slightly. Prior to conscription, every eighth person was an object of violent acts or a participant in them in relation to others (at the place of residence, at school, etc.).

Many conscripts do not develop the necessary moral qualities for a serviceman. However, minor positive changes in the mood of young people in relation to military service were still outlined. In particular, 55% of young men expressed a desire to serve, while only 8% openly expressed their unwillingness to serve. At the same time, 37% will serve only because they comply with the requirements of the law.

It is very important to take into account that the worldview sphere, especially moral qualities, is significantly deformed among young recruits. Under the influence of the informational "garbage" that has clogged the airwaves in recent years, the dominance of the Western low-grade subculture, the consciousness of the younger generation of our country is being corroded.

In this situation, the Armed Forces are an important channel of ideological orientation of young people, a means of forming spiritual values that are necessary for young people not only as defenders of the Fatherland, but also as citizens, patriots of their country.

Cardinal substantive changes in the worldview of the modern generation entering military service also require corresponding changes in the means and forms of educational influence on military personnel.

In this regard, there was a need to use new information technologies in the educational process.

- If you can, tell us more about it.

- One of the main channels of information and educational influence on personnel is public and state training.

The UCP is multifunctional. It solves an educational task: it provides knowledge of the history of the Fatherland, traditions of its armed defense, covers events in the country and abroad. In the formation of the worldview of the individual of military personnel, the most important thing is to reveal its spiritual and moral potential. In this process, we make serious efforts to make UCP classes interesting, accessible, and allow students to think and reason independently.

For this purpose, the Department of public and state training and methods of education of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation published and brought to the troops (forces) a basic textbook on the UCP "In the Service of the Fatherland"last year. The book is positively evaluated and used not only in the army and navy, but also in all law enforcement agencies. Since the middle of last year, three issues of the training manual have been published for the organizers of the UCP and the leaders of the groups " Fatherland. Honor Is Duty."

However, we understand that the previous forms and methods of conducting classes have come into conflict with new information technologies, a product of the information age. Therefore, we are obliged to respond adequately to the upbringing of the personality of a citizen-warrior who lives in a different social and informational dimension than before. Even taking into account the financial difficulties that we are experiencing today, we believe that it is possible to show videos during UCP classes this year.

1200 video cassettes (1st, 2nd,3rd and 4th issues of training videos on the UCP) with twenty 40-minute films were sent to the film bases (film stations) of districts (fleets) and brought to units and divisions. Currently, in accordance with the theme of the UCP for the 1999 academic year, the 5th issue is being prepared, which is planned to be brought to the troops (forces) in the second period of training this year.

If the use of TV sets, music centers, and video equipment for many connections and parts is the level of the present, then educational work with the use of computer technology is the day of tomorrow. But already today, based on the need to work for the future, two computer training programs on the UCP have been developed: "Days of Military Glory of Russia" and "Century of Russian Military Glory".

Currently, the possibility of opening a special channel 29 of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on television, which can be used for conducting classes in the UCP system and in general in the process of educational work, is being considered.

- Without systematic, purposeful work on military-patriotic education of military personnel, it is impossible to successfully solve the tasks facing the Armed Forces. How to make new information technologies work for the process of military-patriotic education?

- As a normative document, we have prepared the Concept of military-patriotic education of young people, approved by the Coordination Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Educational work in the Armed Forces, other troops, military formations and bodies. It has already been sent to the troops, and it should be used as one of the fundamental documents in the planning and organization of educational work.

The analysis of work in the military shows that the work on patriotic education reaches its goal if it is carried out in a planned, systematic and comprehensive manner.

It is necessary to rely more actively on the existing base of patriotic education, which is based on memorial complexes, museums (rooms) of military glory, the history of the unit (there are more than a thousand of them in the Armed Forces), artistic and chronicled documentaries, films and videos, literary and musical works of patriotic orientation.

When planning educational work, it is necessary to step up preparations for the celebration of the 55th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. To this end, it is advisable to establish close cooperation with veterans ' organizations, state authorities, and regional mass media.

The work on military-patriotic education of pre-conscription youth is very relevant. Military-patriotic clubs are doing a lot of work in this direction. Today, there are still not so many of them. However, their contribution to the training of defenders of the Fatherland is significant.

Noteworthy is the experience of the Department of educational work of the Far Eastern Federal District in providing assistance and support to the activities of the Magadan Military Sports and Technical Club "Podvig" (head Vladislav Akolzin). By the way, the magazine "Orientir" also wrote about it. More than 200 young men study in this youth association. In the club, under the guidance of experienced teachers, including reserve soldiers, military training classes are held. Members of the club annually conduct search operations both in the Magadan region and abroad. Their activities are very effective and useful, but, unfortunately, they are studied in order to gain experience more by specialists in working with young people in the United States and China than by our own ones. Every year, children travel outside the region - to the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories. In this they are actively assisted by the command of the Far Eastern Military District, the Air Force and Air Defense associations. In recent years, they have been regularly invited to the United States and other Asia-Pacific countries.

Over the past 21 years, more than 3,000 children have passed through the club, and as a result, in the entire history of the club's existence, there has never been a case when any of its members refused to serve in the army. 64 graduates of the club entered higher military educational institutions.

There are many new and interesting ways to work with parent organizations. We have summarized the positive experience of interaction with organizations of parents of military personnel, and based on it, we have also developed methodological recommendations.

In some parts of the MVO, ZabVO, and Pacific Fleet, audio and video cassettes are used to record congratulations, wishes, and parting words to their sons, which are used in various forms of educational work and act as a powerful stimulating factor in the educational impact on soldiers.

The day is not far off when, if there is at least one computer in the unit and the corresponding equipment (modem, video conferencing equipment), it will be possible to establish "live" communication with parents directly from the unit and work with them in dialog mode. The opportunities for educational influence here are very large.

Recently, the interaction of military authorities with religious associations, primarily the Russian Orthodox Church, has been actively developing.

A cooperation agreement was signed between the Ministry of Defense and the Moscow Patriarchate. Similar agreements have been concluded by the military authorities of districts and fleets with regional diocesan administrations. The greatest development of cooperation was in the units and formations of the Strategic Missile Forces, the Air Force, the MVO, the Pacific Fleet, the Airborne Forces, the engineering Troops, and the RCBZ troops.

At the same time, the command and educational authorities should go beyond the traditional forms of holding joint events (performing religious rites, clergy participating in military rituals) and make more efforts to use the opportunities of religious associations in the interests of solving practical problems: preventing suicide, improving the moral and psychological atmosphere in military collectives, preventing hazing relationships, patriotic education, etc. education of personnel.

- In the context of reforming the army and navy, the basic link in the education of personnel is military and social work. Tell me, Vladimir Fedorovich, how effectively do educational structures create conditions that ensure the normal functioning of military collectives, promote high-quality performance of military personnel's official duties, and determine the moral and psychological state of the troops?

- As a guide to action, the thesis expressed by Russian Defense Minister Igor Dmitrievich Sergeev was adopted: "The ideology of the Armed Forces reform is based on the fact that the life of military personnel is a state value, their personal freedoms are inviolable, and the inevitable restrictions and risks should be compensated by additional rights and benefits, prestige of military service."

Shaken to its very foundations by political events, today society is demonstrating a desire to regain its former glory as a powerful, combat-ready power. Obviously, sweeping criticism of the army's shortcomings, disrespect for people in uniform, unwillingness to delve into the problems of the military - yesterday. Therefore, we attach great importance to cooperation with state bodies and public organizations in solving social problems. The Armed Forces receive substantial assistance in educational work from the State-the Presidential Administration, the Government, and the Defense Council. Good business relations are established with both chambers of the Russian Parliament.

Regular close contacts between the heads of regions, republics, and regions where military units are stationed with representatives of local military authorities bring concrete positive results: assistance in building housing for military personnel, providing material assistance to military personnel, providing medical support to families, etc.

One of the areas of military social work is participation in the legislative process, securing social benefits and guarantees for military personnel in sound, workable laws. The results of this activity are the adoption of 50 normative acts on social protection of all categories of military personnel since 1993. Looking to the future, we carry out long-term planning of regulatory activities. The Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation developed and approved the government commission "List of state measures to strengthen the social protection of military personnel, citizens dismissed from military service, and their family members for 1997-2000". To date, about 30% of the planned measures have found legislative confirmation.

- A huge amount of work on the formation of psychological qualities necessary for military service among personnel is carried out by military psychologists. Tell us about their role in the military education system.

- More than 1.5 thousand officers are currently engaged in the organization of psychological work in the troops, study and predict socio-psychological processes, are engaged in the prevention of negative manifestations of personnel behavior, and form the necessary psychological qualities. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of unresolved issues, primarily personnel issues. Suffice it to say that only a small part of psychologists have a corresponding psychological education and a high professional level.

Currently, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have a network of full-time and more than 350 non-standard rehabilitation and rehabilitation facilities, on the basis of which 34 thousand military personnel received psychological assistance in 1998 alone, 19 thousand people are under dynamic supervision, and 4,500 family members of military personnel received professional psychological counseling.

The most effective centers (points) of psychological assistance and rehabilitation work in the Strategic Missile Forces, PriVO, MVO, LenVO. Rehabilitation and rehabilitation facilities in Kaliningrad (Department of Educational Work of the Baltic Federal District), Budyonnovsk (SKVO), Chernorechye (PriVO), Nizhny Novgorod and Dzerzhinsk (MVO), Kamenka (LenVO) make a great contribution to the recovery of military personnel, maintaining the proper level of psychological stability and readiness of personnel.

- Vladimir Fedorovich, and one last question. What, in your opinion, should be the main thing in educational work now?

- The success of the entire system of educational work depends on the established mechanism of its implementation. Developing such a mechanism and testing it is a complex but necessary part of our work. Obviously, it is necessary to establish operational information on the state and effectiveness of educational work, identify and promote best practices, identify bottlenecks in work and quickly respond to their elimination, and consolidate justifying traditions in the practice of integrated education.

Educational work in the unit should be aimed at explaining and implementing the requirements of the country's leadership to the Armed Forces set out in the "Fundamentals (Concept) of the state policy of the Russian Federation on military construction for the period up to 2005", at forming military personnel's responsibility for performing military duty, loyalty to the Fatherland, and pride in belonging to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

In this complex work, each officer of the compound (unit) must find his place, determine the degree of participation in the educational process.

For the normal functioning of the system of educational work, its effectiveness, it is important to provide certain conditions. We must take into account that big goals require big funds. "Nothing great has ever been done haphazardly. The factor of underfunding has a negative impact, does not allow us to fully realize the potential of the education system accumulated in the troops. Nevertheless, a lot has been done in recent years. Even more is planned to be done in the near future. The Russian Armed Forces are today and will continue to be one of the most stable and managed state institutions in the interests of ensuring the country's military security. This is facilitated not only by organizational, but also by educational activities.